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Thread: WIP: Old Style Continent Map

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    Guild Member JDCt's Avatar
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    Wip WIP: Old Style Continent Map

    I was looking over some tutorials on the forum and came across a nice one for world maps. I used the "Antique Style Maps in Photoshop" tutorial. I used a bit of a different idea for rivers than in the tutorial, and I think it worked out pretty well. I need to flesh out some more things. The next thing I am looking to do are mountains and making a system of roads that will not be confused with rivers. This is my first digital map.

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v681/JDCT/Map_WIP.jpg

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    Community Leader Facebook Connected Ascension's Avatar
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    Overall, pretty nice. The reason I put in the bit on rivers in is so that folks would not make unrealistic rivers. I can see that you're using a random marble-like generator thing to make your rivers but that makes them go against physics. All you're getting out of it is some squiggliness. Rivers do not split as they go downstream (they converge - come together) and therefore they would never go to different oceans. The only exception to this is going around harder rock islands and deltas. Likewise lakes only have one outflowing river unless they are relatively young lakes caused by some sort of meteorite impact. Eventually one river channel will dominate (ie cut into the soil faster and therefore cut a deeper channel faster) and the others will dry up. I would suggest dumping the rivers and put in the mountains and then see where the rivers are likely to be.

    Other than the rivers things look pretty good, though.
    If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
    -J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)


    My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps

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    Guild Member JDCt's Avatar
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    Thanks for the reply. I see that geology & geography are one of those things I am going to have to brush up on a bit. I was looking for a bit quicker way to make rivers than to draw them out individually with a pencil tool. I am still unsure how to go about making mountains. I am looking for a specific style, something akin to those used on the map of Middle Earth, or something like that used in Oblivion.

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    Community Leader Facebook Connected Ascension's Avatar
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    I'm only passing at Oblivion but that is a painted style from what I Googled...there were a bunch of crappy ones and one average satellite style. The Middle Earth maps that I'm familiar with are all hand-drawn style.
    If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
    -J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)


    My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps

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    Guild Member JDCt's Avatar
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    I'm not quite sure what will work best in this situation for mountains. I will just have to try a few different approaches and see what works best. Once I get a few whipped up I will post them to be commented on.

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    Guild Member JDCt's Avatar
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    I have done the rivers over again and added a first version of mountains. I tried mountain brushes, but it just didn't seem to go with my map at all. So instead I tried using varying brush flow, size, pattern overlays, and some beveling. Not quite sure it's what I want, but it is a start. Doesn't quite look right to me at the moment. Any opinions?
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    Administrator Facebook Connected Diamond's Avatar
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    Oooooh!! That's a cool idea and I think it has a lot of potential. But... the fuzziness of the mountains right now doesn't work at all with the crispness of the rest of the map. I wonder if there's a way to achieve more crispness there without sacrificing the feel of them? I'm sure Ascension or someone will be along shortly to enlighten us...

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    Guild Adept moutarde's Avatar
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    Those mountains look fantastic, but like Diamond said, they don't really work with the rest of the map. It's unfortunate, because I really do think they look great

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    Community Leader Facebook Connected Ascension's Avatar
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    You'll find mountains similar to that on the Dragon Age map of Thedas...kinda sorta. The style is shaded relief. You might want to look at the mountain and hills brushes by Ramah and do those in the hand-drawn style...I think they were compiled and uploaded by Vhailor. You could also just go with simple triangles that don't have the bottoms on them...more like an arrowhead I guess, like what Moutarde is doing with his.
    Last edited by Ascension; 12-27-2009 at 12:24 AM.
    If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
    -J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)


    My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps

  10. #10

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    looking good so far. I only have 2 comments that hopefully may be helpful. On the top right of the map is a river system, that looks like an elongated 8. its kind of bizarre looking to me. 2nd point is about the mountains. I like to look at old maps, and yours is spot on except for the mountains. Usually during the era your map is sort of pointing to used simple mountain symbols. Look at some of the early mercatur maps. they may give you some ideas.

    gl,
    Marc
    Visit my site for roleplaying at http://www.rpgrescue.com.

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